92 HORATIO HALE ON LANGUAGE 



drunkenness nor a quarrel of any kind among them since I assumed charge. Very many 

 are quite skilfully cultiyating their little farms, and many more would be doing so were 

 they supplied with teams and implements." " Since assuming charge of the agency,*' he 

 continues, " I have re-organized our police force of eleven men, and find them obedient, 

 cheerful in the performance of their duties, and always ready and willing to execute all 

 commands given to them. They are kept almost constantly on the move, always on 

 duty, visiting the various outlying camps, and herding beeves. They take good care of 

 their uniforms, arms, horses and accoutrements, and are proud of the distinction conferred 

 upon them." 



The Grovernment has established a boarding-school on the reservation. This school, 

 the agent remarks, was temporarily " closed in May last, by reason of the resignation of 

 the superintendent, since which time the boys have been doing most excellent work on 

 the school farm, of which they are justly proud. As the result of their labour they will 

 supply the school through the winter with an abundance of vegetables, and their cows 

 and calves with hay, corn, and oats. The six girls, though young, are making good 

 progress in housekeeping, cooking, needlework, etc , and are bright, intelligent, and lady- 

 like in their deportment." 



There seems something almost pathetic in this description, when we recall to mind 

 that these indiistrious and well-conducted farmers, these docile and faithful policemen, 

 and these zealous boy-pupils and "bright and lady-like girls," belong to that direful 

 brood of ferocious and untamable Apaches, against whose utter extermination hardly a 

 voice was raised, some twenty years ago, on either side of the Anglo-Mexican boundary, 

 except here and there perhaps in the mild remonstrance of some "visionary" phil- 

 anthropist. 



But the ethnologist, who really understands the science which he professes to 

 pursue, has no reason to be surprised at any progress which the Navajos, or their con- 

 geners have made or may hereafter make. Any one who will take the trouble to study 

 in M. Petitot's work the language of their original stock will be satisfied that none but a 

 people possessing powers of observation, reflection, and discrimination in a very high 

 degree, could have spoken such a language. The remark of Prof Max Millier concerning 

 the language of the Iroquois (which he learned from an Oxford student of that race), that 

 the people who fashioned svich a speech must have been " powerful reasoners and accu- 

 rate classifiers,"' will apply with even greater force to the speakers of the Tinneh idiom. 

 If we accept the rule proposed by my able and learned friend. Dr. Brinton, in his work 

 on " The American Race," ■ that " the final decision as to the abilities of a race or an 

 individual must be based on actual accomplished results, not on siipposed endowments," 

 — qualifying this rule merely by a just regard to the circumstances under which the 

 results are achieved, — we may fairly ask where among all the races of the earth shall we 

 find a community which in the course of so brief a term as five or six hundred years — to 

 which, according to the facts at present known to us, the residence of the northern Tinneh 

 in their present abodes has been limited, — has, with such slight foreign assistance, 

 achieved such remarkable results A few hundreds of ignorant and poverty-stricken 

 emigrants from the far north have developed into a wealthy commonwealth, maintaining 



' From a letter quoted in my " Iroquois Book of Rites," p. 98. 

 '' See p. 42 of that work. 



